Tuesday 6 March 2007 19.10 EST
First published on Tuesday 6 March 2007 19.10 EST

A controversial new selection process for junior doctors could be scrapped by a high-level review, announced by the government last night, following an outcry over the failure of some of the best-qualified to get a single job interview.

The review will be led by the medical royal colleges. In an urgent attempt to sort out perceived injustices and regain the confidence of doctors, the first meeting will take place today. Decisions on whether to continue with the first round of interviews will be taken tomorrow.

Thousands of young doctors who may already have spent seven or eight years training to become consultants were left contemplating the end of their careers when they received emails last week telling them that they had failed to get even one interview out of a possible four for jobs to begin in August.

Only 22,000 jobs were available for up to 30,000 applicants. Not only the shortfall, but the calibre of those rejected has caused a furore. A number say they are considering emigrating to Australia or leaving medicine altogether.

Consultants who expected trainees to walk into new jobs were also appalled. In the West Midlands, consultant surgeons said they would not interview the shortlisted applicants because of their concerns that the system had not been fair.

Yesterday the British Medical Association was far from placated by the announcement of a review and continued to call for the interview process to be halted. "Not only is this response too late, it also does not go far enough," it said in a statement. "While we welcome a review, the only fair solution now is for the interview process to be suspended until it can be clearly shown that no doctor has been disadvantaged as a result of the government's mistakes."

But the Department of Health says it "would be irresponsible to halt the interview process at this late stage". It would create anxiety and uncertainty for those doctors already offered interviews and would result in empty hospital posts in August. It says the review will deduce what has gone wrong in round one so that changes to the system can be made in time for a second round of interviews beginning on April 28.

The Academy of Royal Colleges, whose vice-president, Professor Neil Douglas, will lead the review, said shortcomings in the new selection process "have caused dismay and much distress". It undertook to work with the health department "to ensure the necessary action is taken to remedy faults and to restore confidence".

In an earlier statement, it spoke of dismay at the exposure of serious weaknesses in the system. "The trainee doctors who are directly affected feel this most keenly and distressingly."

The BMA cited evidence that very able doctors had not been offered interviews, that non-medically qualified staff were involved in recruitment and that consultants had had insufficient time to assess the applications fairly. One shortlister told the Guardian she had to mark one question on 650 papers within a matter of hours.

Jo Hilborne, chair of the junior doctors committee, and Jonathan Fielden, chair of the consultants committee, wrote to the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, urging her to suspend the recruitment round immediately.

"Patients and doctors alike must be able to have confidence that the doctors selected to become the consultants of the future have been chosen because of their own excellence rather than as the result of a capricious and unfair system," they said in their letter.

"This is not the case at present; the selection process is fatally flawed, and doctors have no confidence in it.

"If it is allowed to go ahead, the effect of this debacle on the morale of all doctors, not just those directly involved but those whose friends and colleagues are suffering, will haunt the NHS for years to come."